Education
Take Them Walking: IMAGINATIVE EXPLORATIONS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Dr Gillian Judson writes on the Walking Curriculum that can help learners grow to feel connected to the Place where they go to school.
Research shows that meaningful experiences in nature as children can impact the development of a conservation ethic (deBrito et al., 2017; Fisher-Maltese, 2016; McClain & Vandermaas-Peeler, 2016; Selby, 2017; Wells & Lekies, 2006). Unfortunately, not all outdoor learning experiences are created equal. Practices that neglect emotional and imaginative engagement in the learning process do little to cultivate the heart of a conservation ethic (Judson, 2010, 2015). With the aim of developing learners’ ecological understanding— an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and a sense of care/concern for the natural world — we can teach in ways that afford our students’ emotional connections with their local natural and cultural contexts. We can support young children in developing a “sense of place”—a personal relationship with their natural/cultural context as well as a certain depth of knowledge about it.
This article briefly introduces Imaginative Ecological Education, or IEE, a crosscurricular approach to teaching that combines three elements in learning: Feeling (engagement of emotion and imagination), Activeness (involvement of the body), and Place (a focus on the natural, local world) (Judson, 2015, 2010). Given the scope of this article, I focus on the Feeling principle and a resource called The Walking Curriculum: Evoking Wonder and Developing Sense of Place (Judson, 2018) that exemplifies some features of imagination-focused Place-based learning. This article briefly Introduces Imaginative Ecological Education, or IEE, a cross-curricular approach to teaching that combines three elements in learning: Feeling (engagement of emotion and imagination), Activeness (involvement of the body), and Place (a focus on the natural, local world) (Judson, 2015, 2010). Given the scope of this article, I focus on the Feeling principle and a resource called The Walking Curriculum: Evoking Wonder and Developing Sense of Place (Judson, 2018) that exemplifies some features of imagination-focused Place-based learning.
Engage Learners With Place: Imaginative Ecological Education
Educators of all kinds and in all contexts are in the business of meaning making. And, at the end of the (school)day, meaning requires emotion. As Dr. Immordino-Yang (2015) shows us in her research in affective neuroscience—and what I think all teachers know deeply—is that emotion is the mind’s rudder. Emotion directs all learning. Our students frequently and routinely think about the world in ways that evoke their emotions and imaginations. For example, they universally enjoy stories or narratives of all kinds. They all enjoy jokes and humour. They all identify patterns in the world around them. Many are fascinated by extremes of experience and limits of reality- -the stuff in the Guinness Book of World Records. Many associate with heroes and even idolise people, ideas, or institutions. Many start collecting things and obsess over hobbies. Words cause images to arise in all of their minds. They all enjoy a good mystery and can be left awestruck by unanswered questions or strange events. I could go on and on; our students' emotional and imaginative lives manifest themselves in many varied ways.
These different forms of engagement are not insignificant; they are actually ways of thinking that help human beings learn. In Imaginative Education, a pedagogy developed by Dr. Kieran Egan from Simon Fraser University in B.C. Canada, these features of our imaginative lives are "cognitive tools"— they are emotional ways human beings make meaning in the world (Egan, 1997; Egan & Judson, 2016).
In ECE our students are actively emotionally and engaging with the world around them by employing tools of oral language and the body: the senses, the sense of musicality, the story-form, dramatic oppositions, vivid mental imagery, rhyme, rhythm & pattern, a sense of mystery, play. These tools are profoundly powerful for learning. (This post provides detail on how each of these tools can support learning for young children.)
IEE brings the emotional and imaginative engagement of the child to the center of theory and practice in outdoor learning (Judson, 2015, 2010). IEE intentionally combines these cognitive tools with a body-based and Placebased approach to learning. A look at The Walking Curriculum provides a glimpse into how this can happen.
IEE in Action: A Walking Curriculum
To the child, as to the artist, everything is relevant, little is unseen. (Horowitz, 2013, p. 76)
I have always felt that schoolyards tend to be underused resources for ecological learning. Many teachers have not been given the opportunity to consider how Place (the natural and cultural context in which learning occurs) can contribute to their teaching. Others assume that learning/teaching outside is suitable solely for 5“natural” topics—e.g. topics in science or social studies. Fewer still, perhaps, have ever considered how Place is—or can be— a co-teacher. A long-term aim of The Walking Curriculum is that teachers will re-imagine what Place can contribute to their teaching.
In a nutshell, The Walking Curriculum is about providing students with outdoor, Place-based inquiry questions that connect to and employ different cognitive tools of the imagination. Through frequent opportunities to explore their schoolyards, images and knowledge of the local natural world may become etched in learners’ minds—they will come to know each Place in great(er) detail and may develop emotional connection and, ultimately, a sense of ethical responsibility. Like a holographic image, each walk can bring some aspect of the natural world and related curricular knowledge into focus.
Details
The 60 walks described in The Walking Curriculum include “prompts” to support student exploration and to cultivate students’ emotional connections to Place. The walks reflect a variety of themes, perspectives, and motivations. For example, learners may be asked to find things (such as shapes, spaces or lines, evidence of growth or change, “the best” hiding places), to change perspectives (imagine being a beetle, a detective, or a visitor from outer space), to encounter the world differently (emphasizing one sense over another or moving through space differently), or to seek evidence of human-nature relationships. In all cases, the intent is to deepen students’ awareness of the particularities and meaning of Place.
For now, check out these sample walks designed for young children (note each is paired with a cognitive tool to ignite imagination):
The (Sur)Faces Walk Look for “faces” of all kinds. What (sur)faces do you encounter on the walk? What do you notice about the (sur)faces?
The Senses: What do the surfaces feel like? How do they feel different to the touch of a finger? How do they feel to the touch of your forearm instead of your finger?
The Motion Walk Employ as many of your senses as possible to complete this challenge. What is moving around you? What is on the move? Besides seeing movement, how else can you tell something is moving?
Gesture & Intention: Try to repeat using your body the movements you discovered. Are the movements easy or hard to do/represent? Why?
The Borders Walk Notice areas of transition on your walk. Where are the borders to your walk? What borders appear to you within your walking space?
Sense of Mystery: How do you know it is a ‘border’? What are the clues?
The What’s Underfoot Walk What do you notice about the world you are walking on? What is under your feet?
Sense of Wonder: Everything, eventually, goes back to the Earth—so what really have you been walking on? The remains of ancestors? The dampness of water that was once in an ocean far away? Imagine that with each step a ghost escapes. What ghosts of flora and fauna float around you?
The Animate World Walk What evidence of life can you find?
Binary Opposites & Metaphor: Classify your findings into animate (rooted or moving—anything that won’t stand still) and inanimate; also classify your findings as screams (obviously alive) versus whispers (subtle).
Final Thoughts
The Walking Curriculum encourages us to conceive of place-making in imaginative terms; we are imaginative and emotional beings after all. Of course, simply being outside (playing at the playground or playing soccer) or doing things outside (taking “indoor” work outdoors/cleaning up the playground) will not necessarily help students form relationships or any profound emotional connections with nature. It is important, therefore, to try to include opportunities for what Naess (2002) calls “Activeness” Activeness describes a profound internal form of relationship we can cultivate with the natural world that has the most potential impact on our understanding of nature. Get some more ideas about developing attentive or “body-full” learning in these Lessons For Living Attentively or read more about this principle for imaginative and ecological teaching here. With opportunities to emotionally and imaginatively connect with the natural world—and with your guided support—young children may be increasingly aware of nuanced changes. The Walking Curriculum can help learners grow to feel connected to the Place where they go to school.